Description: Interview with Elizabeth Saunders, author of How to Invest Your Time Like Money (Harvard Business Review Press). Elizabeth discusses how experts, entrepreneurs, and teachers can find the time in a busy schedule to create a successful online course.

Key Points & Takeaways

Authenticity means being completely honest with myself and others about what I’m doing — and why I’m doing it. Ask yourself, Am I telling people the real reasons I have for what I’m doing? In order to live authentically and be connected with other people, it’s important to be transparent about your rationale, not just your actions. For example, if you’re driven by a passion to express your ideas, you shouldn’t tell others that you’re creating a course in order to make more money.

In the end, you need to feel good about what you’re doing or not doing — and invest your time in activities that matter to you, not what you feel pressured by others to do.

We want to be very intentional about how we invest our time. The first step is to really stop and reflect on what’s most important to you.

If you’re having trouble finding time to create your online course, a first step would be to review all the activities on which you’re currently spending your time. Then ask how your course truly fits into your set of priorities and projects. If you say your course is a top priority, yet other activities are taking more of your time, then you can start to figure out how to spend less time on the lower-priority activities.

Being creative is vulnerable. If you are resisting the creative side of your course (designing content, etc.), it may be time to look at emotional blocks that could be preventing you from making progress. For example, if you schedule a specific time to work on your course, and then still find yourself resisting the project at that time, Elizabeth recommends looking at your emotional reaction to the project.

Many solopreneurs are in “time debt,” meaning you have committed (internally or externally) to more meetings and projects than you could possibly handle.

Create “automatic time investments” through consistent scheduling. For example, “Every Wednesday afternoon from 1pm to 3pm, I’ll focus on my course.” When the time comes, you know that’s what you need to focus on in the moment.

You need cash flow to support the time you invest in your course creation. Start by establishing a baseline. What’s the minimum monthly or annual income you need? Then look at what services, products, and packages you offer, and how they are priced. Shoot to spend no more than 50% – 60% of your time on direct client work or other “time for money” activities. Can you price your services, products, and packages to match this time investment?

Focus on one business development activity at a time. For example, in the first quarter of your year, just focus on creating a course on ruzuku. Then in the 2nd quarter, focus solely on updating your marketing website. You’ll make more progress if you really focus on one activity at a time.

When you’re engaged in a creativity activity such as course development, you need to get into a creative mindset. It’s almost a meditative state of mind, in which you have higher-level awareness. To achieve this state, you need to block out longer periods of time and really devote yourself to this work — perhaps once or twice a week. You should also be as “disconnected” as possible — disable interruptions like email or Facebook, and consider shifting into a different environment such as a coffee shop.
Put your creative time first and foremost, rather than giving yourself the “leftover” time.

To make the most of this creative time, get really clear on what you’re going to do in a specific block of time. For example, “I will outline the first 3 modules of my course using Workflowy, and then email the outline to my partner to get feedback.”

If you’re really struggling to do something, find a way to make it a treat or make it fun. For example, going to a coffee shop and getting a favorite drink can be a great prelude to focusing on your course design work.

If you really want to have big returns on your time investment, taking the time to make course creation a priority can really pay off.

Elizabeth’s tip to find time for creating your course

It’s not about “having more time,” it’s about making the best use of the limited time you do have.

Remember that creating a course is… creative! And when you’re engaged in a creativity activity, you need to get into a creative mindset.

It’s almost a meditative state of mind, in which you have higher-level awareness.

To achieve this state, you need to block out longer periods of time and really devote yourself to this work — perhaps once or twice a week.

You should also be as “disconnected” as possible — disable interruptions like email or Facebook, and consider shifting into a different environment such as a coffee shop.